>>> Liam Quinn <liam@htmlhelp.com> 01/28/97 08:17am >>>
>At 02:45 AM 28/01/97 -0500, Gordon Blackstock wrote:
>>| If one were to set Text and Link colors using a
>>| style sheet, should one also define the background
>>| colors for these elements as well?
>>Since there is no practical way to know in advance, or at the time
>of
>>rendering, what the default settings of a browser may have been
>changed to
>>by a viewer, then it makes good sense to specify all colors if any
>are to
>>be changed by a document. Without this precaution it is possible
>(it's
>>happened to me) that portions of the document can be invisible to
>the
>>viewer. I would agree with Urban F. and go even further by adding
>that the
>>design is incomplete without all color bases covered.
I think that it is the responsibility of the user to
cover both background and foreground colors if the viewer
customizes the browser.
<snip!>
>I think I'm leaning towards the suggestion that background and color
>properties always be given together. The reason that I've never
>committed to this advice is that it still seems somewhat "not right"
>that an undesired highlighting effect could appear if the user, for
>example, overrides the BODY background but not the link background.
>Since this would only leave a page unreadable in a small minority of
>situations
>(depending on the colours involved), I questioned whether it wouldn't
>be better for users in these situations to turn the author's style
>sheet off.
I've never understood why the background property
doesn't inherit. I'm sure there must be a reason, but
I really can't think of any.
>However, I suppose that the awkwardness of an undesired highlighting
>effect would be better than having users stare at a document with
>unreadable links.
True
>Liam Quinn liam@htmlhelp.com http://www.htmlhelp.com/%7Eliam/
And while we're on the subject of colors, I think it should
be a law (punishable using death by <blink>) that any
"enhancement" to HTML that changes a foreground color should
also allow for the specification of a background color, and
vice versa. I'm thinking specifically of BGCOLOR in table
cells, and COLOR in <FONT>. I don't want to use a Bgcolor
that contrasts too much with the body color because otherwise,
I'll have to use <FONT COLOR=""> for the text inside the
table. But there are some browsers that understand
<FONT COLOR=""> yet don't honor the BGCOLOR attribute in
<TD>.
And I won't even get into the problem of users
selecting "always use my colors" and yet the browser uses
the colors specified in <TD BGCOLOR> and <FONT COLOR>.
Granted, these attributes should be specified using style
sheets anyway, so perhaps the problem will just go away.
But even in stylesheet land there is a problem with background
colors in <link>'ed stylesheets. (Fixed in the Mac verion
of IE, thankfully.)
C h a r l e s P e y t o n T a y l o r ctaylor@nps.navy.mil
The opinions and views expressed are my own and do not reflect those of
the Naval PostGraduate School
"Dreams are like water, colorless, and dangerous"
http://vislab-www.nps.navy.mil/%7ectaylor/